Thoughts on Urban Development

The way we design our environment and the way we use it are two of the most important aspects in determining our happiness, quality of life, economic outlook, and showing what we as a society consider important.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Recently, the city council of
Washington, DC voted to drastically cut the proposed budget for the
DC streetcar, from the estimated $1.3 billion that would be needed
for the construction of the basic 22 mile system, to less than half
that, $460 million. This level of funding would only be enough to
support construction of about half the H Street/One City line and a
short segment in Anacostia not connected to the rest of the city, as
opposed to the full One City line, Takoma Park line and the first
line linking downtown with Anacostia.

When the DC Streetcar was first
proposed, it was intended to serve several purposes. First, it was
intended to promote economic development in neighborhoods and
corridors not served by Metrorail, many of which had streetcar
service previously. Second, it was intended to connect neighborhoods
and move people around DC, unlike Metrorail, which was designed to
bring people in and out of Washington as fast as possible. Third, it
was intended to add substantial transit capacity without having to
spend tens of billions of dollars and decades expanding Metrorail.

To the first point, the city council's
actions constitute blatant deception. Much of the economic
development the streetcar was intended to attract has already
occurred, and now it seems that this development will not be getting
the transportation that spurred its construction and that is necessitated for it to live up to the expectations of developers. Not only does this
open the floodgates to lawsuits but it also shows in a very public
way that the DC government cannot keep its promises, even to
developers whose efforts are generally immune from political power
struggles. To this end, it is likely that DC will be left out of
future economic development efforts, as the future of the District's
infrastructure is in doubt and developers cannot guarantee that the
city will support future efforts on a similar scale, or that growth
projections can, in fact, be met.

In addition, the city council's actions
are yet another reason for the residents of the District to lose
faith in their government. The original maps of the streetcar system
show it serving many low income neighborhoods, especially Anacostia.
This transportation service, combined with the economic development
brought by the streetcar and the District's affordable housing and
inclusionary zoning policies offered the best opportunity to date to
create true mixed income neighborhoods that cater to everyone and can
bring about substantial, lasting reductions in crime and poverty. The
city council has completely forsaken this opportunity. One which
would prove valuable to other cities across the country and around
the world.

To the second and third points, as two
short segments of the streetcar system now intended to be the limits
of construction for the foreseeable future, it goes without saying
that the streetcar falls short of its goal of serving as a DC
circulator and extending the reach of pedestrians within the city.
This is a role that Metrorail has been forced to take on, and a role
which that system was not designed for. Building the streetcar in its
entirety can shift intracity trips away from Metrorail, allowing it
to take on additional capacity in the form of radial expansions to
suburbs as originally intended.

In addition, the lack of intra-city
mobility brought about from the scaling back of the streetcar will
only serve to increase the concentrations of wealth and poverty
within DC. Lack of a more permanent, extensive, exclusively within
the district transportation system will mean that wealthy residents
are less likely to spread their spending dollars to other parts of
the city, as accessing them is that much harder. This not only means
that gentrified areas will continue to gentrify as a result of
neighborhoods retaining dollars spent, but that low income areas will
see little, if any, benefit from economic development in other areas
of the city and continue to decline. It also means that there will be
less transit capacity for low income residents who have jobs in other
areas of the city, limiting economic and social opportunities.

One criticism brought against the
streetcar system is that of mismanagement, and it is a very valid
concern. A streetcar system, in various iterations, has been in
construction since the mid 2000s. First in Anacostia, now the current
line on H Street and the larger system after that. The fact that it
has taken this long, and streetcars are not in revenue service, is
unacceptable. It is clear that management and construction of this
system is a bigger bite than DDOT can currently chew. To this end, a
design, build, operate and maintain contract was planned to be put
out that would cover the design and construction costs of the
streetcar system, as well as its operation and maintenance in the
future. This would turn the system over to an organization with
expertise in the construction and operation of streetcar
infrastructure, and significantly lessen the impact that political
fights have over the streetcar system. However, by drastically
reducing the funding available to the streetcar, the assembly of such
a contract is essentially off the table, as the funding required now
cannot be procured. Thus, the decision by the council has ironically
shackled the streetcar system to the poor management of DDOT.

Overall, it seems that the city council
is either unaware of the consequences of their decision, or
malevolent in their actions. The streetcar system as proposed would
address several crucial economic and transportation needs within DC,
doing so in a way that has a great potential to lessen income
equality and provide for all the city's residents, not just the young
and wealthy. This is what it really means for a city to be world
class. Not that it has some fancy amenity, but that it uses its
transportation system, zoning regulations, and economy to do the most
good for the largest number of its residents.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Throughout the history of city
planning, and except for a brief period in the 1960s, it has never
directly entered the public mindset as something that can bring about
social justice and lead to better living.

Cities are the building blocks of
nations. They are economic powerhouses which have developed or
manufactured each and every technological advance in the history of
the human race. Cities are the cornerstone of modern society. But
cities are even more than that:

“Cities are for people. A place for their hopes and dreams, their
work and play, their homes and homes for their children. Cities are
alive and have personalities, each different from all others and each
in constant change.”

-Richard Bartlett, AIA.

As I note in the banner of this blog,
how we design and use our environments directly relate to the quality
of interactions we have with and within them. These interactions can
include everything from the mundane, such as buying groceries, to the
extreme, such as criminal activity.

Cities are built by people and for
people. As residents of cities, or as those who have reaped the
benefits of cities, we have a responsibility not only to ensure their
continued prosperity, but to ensure that the social, economic, and
cultural benefits they bring reach the largest number of people and
do the greatest amount of good. It is our responsibility to ensure
that cities meet the needs of all social and economic groups, that
cities can provide safe places for children as well as homes for the
elderly. It is our responsibility to ensure that the penthouse
apartments for the wealthy do not detract from the provision of
housing for those on the margins of society.

Moreso, it is our responsibility to
ensure that the economic and societal collapse of the 1960s and
1970s, mainly due to urban decay, does not repeat itself. We must
make sure that our cities are resilient, both economically and
environmentally. We must build for the desires of the present, while
planning for the future; realizing that while bars and nightclubs may
be desirable now, schools and grocery stores will be needed in the
years to come.

To this end, ensuring comprehensive
multimodal transportation is the responsibility of every citizen, and
we all have something to gain from it. Americans spend almost one
third of their income on transportation, only to receive increasing
commutes, increased stress levels, increased pollution, and longer
work days. This is not sustainable in any way. Our love of the
automobile has fractured our social networks, brought our environment
to the verge of destruction, and caused our lives to revolve around
the price of gasoline, not to mention the 30,000 deaths per year as a result of automobile wrecks.

We also have a responsibility to keep
our cities free of crime. This does not have to mean an increase in
the police force, however. The design of our cities in and of
themselves can deter crime, something which was realized as long ago
as the 1960s. This, along with a fundamental rethinking of policing
strategies, as brought to the table by David Kennedy, is something
that it is our responsibility to advocate for. It is the job of a
city to bring people together and foster social, as well as
intellectual, collaboration regardless of race, class, or gender.
Crime does the opposite of this. It separates communities, often
across racial lines, and fosters negative stereotypes.

Finally, and on a more personal level,
the design of our environment impacts our health. Perhaps the
ultimate solution to our healthcare costs lies not in the halls of
congress, but in our methods of development. Our fascination with
automobiles and drive-throughs has led to an explosion in the
popularity of fast food and a dramatic increase in distance between
travel points. A recent article in USA Streetsblog
notes that only in three cities in the entire country, New
York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, is it possible for a majority
of residents to walk to a grocery store in five minutes or less. If
we spent more time walking or riding our bicycles to the store and
spent less time eating fast food in our cars, perhaps we could reduce
our record rates of obesity and heart disease. If we consolidated our
development and devoted more money to inner city economic
development, perhaps we could alleviate the food desert issue that
plagues so many low income communities.

However, none of these aspects can be
looked at in their own field of influence. It is impossible to
encourage more people to walk or bike in a community that is rife
with crime. Likewise, it is impossible to encourage economic
development and business investment without building a vibrant and
resilient community. Finally, it is downright negligent to constantly
mourn victims of mass shootings without paying attention to the fact
that the majority of mass shootings occur in suburban areas.

This is what the idea of urbanism is.
Not just understanding the world around us and how we interact with
it, but also realizing that the built environment is one that we all
influence, whether we realize it or not. To borrow (and modify) a
phrase from Matthew Taylor, the Chief Execuitve of the Royal Society
for the Arts, I believe that the use of our urban space can “tell
us about who we are as human beings, spark political debates about
who we need to be, and lead to philosophical debates about who we
aspire to be”. The goal of urbanists is to spark and lead these
discussions, turning inclusive thought and deliberation into policy.

This sentiment was expressed over 50
years ago by Jane Jacobs, in her landmark book Death and Life of
Great American Cities, which
brought planning into the realm of the general public for the first
time:

“Cities
have the capability of providing something for everybody, only
because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

Friday, February 7, 2014

I recently had an opportunity to view
the documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth,
which I touched upon earlier in this blog. In this film, many
residents of the infamous public housing development reflect upon the
time they lived there, the community that existed, and it's ultimate
undoing.

The residents
interviewed for the film, some who had lived in the development since
the beginning, others who moved in during its period of decline, all
noted that throughout the lifetime of Pruitt-Igoe, a strong community
developed, first based on the joy and pride that came from living in
such a new, modern place, and later as a counter to the decline of
the complex and its neglect by local, state, and federal housing
officials.

The documentary
notes that what caused the ultimate undoing of the development, a
post-industrial city with a declining population, miscalculations of
growth, and policy, both formal and informal that maintained the
racial segregation of St. Louis's housing stock, keeping African
Americans from entry-level jobs, had little to do with the modernist
movement, architectural features of the buildings (or lack thereof),
or the quality of the community created within them.

Jane
Jacobs, in her landmark Death and Life of Great American
Cities notes that housing
developments such as these will inherently fail due to their
architectural characteristics, such as massive scale, large open
spaces with little use, and lack of economic diversity or mixed uses.
However, from this documentary it is apparent that such a community
did develop, and that, for a time, it was able to benefit and look
after the residents of Pruitt Igoe.

Ultimately, the
downfall of this community, and the housing complex, was caused by
insufficient maintenance, a shrinking population, and a bureaucracy
that ultimately was apathetic to such problems as they affected many
similar public housing units around the country. In other words, the
massive resources that a public housing development of this scale
needed to succeed were not available.

In this sense, the
point Jacobs makes is that development or refurbishment is most
efficient and useful if it occurs in forms already recognized in the
neighborhood it is located in, as this development can be supported
by existing infrastructure, with existing means. In order to work
properly, modernist public housing on a large scale would require
massive amounts of continued funding, which would likely be
unsustainable.

Jacobs notes this,
and tells the reader that when the word “project” is used to
describe such a development, it conjures very specific things, namely
that the development, and those who live in it, are fundamentally
different than their surroundings. Death and Life of Great
American Cities describes in detail how cities can be revitalized
by using their intrinsic characteristics, a much less intrusive
practice than the modernist approach, and one that is ultimately more
sustainable.

In this way, the
film's claim that Pruitt Igoe should not be used as an example of
modernist failings is somewhat inaccurate. Pruitt Igoe demonstrated
that the modernist approach would work as long as large sums of money
were provided over the lifespan of modernist developments. The
political reality prevented (and continues to prevent) such sums of
money being spent on public housing, necessitating a more efficient
approach.

It can be argued
that Jacobs approach to housing is more practical because it uses the
intrinsic features of an urban environment to promote social and
economic growth. This prevents unnecessary sums of money being spent
on imposing “order” on an “chaotic mess”to use descriptions
common amongst modern architects and correcting what is actually a
non-problem.

This is the core
reason that large scale public housing complexes such as Pruitt-Igoe
should not be repeated, they are the hallmark of construction for
construction's sake, and only work if continuously supplied with
funding.

Monday, August 19, 2013

The bankruptcy of Detroit has sent a
shock wave through the economic community and has caused much
discussion about the continued provision of pensions and other
"entitlements" by municipal governments. Such discussions follow
the popular debate about public sector unions, but fail to take into
account elementary knowledge of planning and economic efficiency.
Detroit's development went against several guidelines noted primarily
in Jane Jacobs' The Economy of Cities
which describe how cities grow, develop, and adapt to change.
Ironically, this book used Detroit as an example of how cities should
develop sustainably.

1: Lack of Economic
Diversity

Detroit
was developed as an industrial city, and for many decades that
industry and its exports were widely varied, from ship building to
agricultural and industrial machinery to tools to automobiles. Jane
Jacobs takes note of this and describes that a city must have
diversity in its economy in order for it to adapt to change. During
the second half of the 20th
century, Detroit's industry began to converge on one product,
automobiles. This was well and good for the brief period before
automation of assembly lines and competition from foreign
manufacturers. This quickly changed, as assembly lines started to
automate, less manpower was required to operate factories, and
legions of workers were let go. In addition, as manufacturers such as
Honda and Toyota came into the American market, offering what was
widely perceived to be a superior product, the demand for domestic
automobiles started to decline. The fact that Detroit's main export
was automobiles meant that factory workers who were laid off had few
employment alternatives.

2: Sprawl

Detroit's
horizontal growth (attributable in no small part to it's main export)
exponentially increased the amount of money that needed to be spent
to provide public services to its residents. More police and
firefighters were needed to cover more land, more schools had to be
built and more teachers and staff hired to operate them, more
hospitals and clinics needed to be built, and more roads needed to be
maintained. This not only required the city spending money to build
and maintain public structures and hire people necessary to operate
them, but also required private residents to pay higher taxes to
maintain those services, spend more on transportation, living, and
healthcare. The city is now unable to maintain this infrastructure,
and vacant houses have been torn down in droves.

3: Corruption

Despite the fact
that the monetary losses from the city pale in comparison to its
debt, this is a major consideration. Detroit is famous for its
corrupt city officials. It's mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has been
investigated multiple times by the federal government and accused of
laundering money through a variety of front companies. In addition,
many current and former council members have been charged with
corruption.
Clearly, the city's politicians are not motivated to solve problems
such as economic resiliency, poverty, and crime.

In order for a city
to be sustainable, it must be economically resilient. Detroit did not
plan for this (perhaps due to the fact that the interests of its
politicians were elsewhere) and, predictably, failed. Cities must
insure adequate economic diversity for continued survival and the
well being of their residents.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

One development that's undergone much
recent study in the field of engineering is the concept of design
fixation, the reluctance of a designer to innovate due to their
unquestioned adherence to existing ideas or due to the influence of
previous designs upon them.

According to a study published by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), design fixation is often subliminal, and occurring
regardless of what instructions are provided to the designer. This
often results in a flawed design being, in a large part, copied,
despite the designer being told specifically that it is flawed.

This concept is beginning to manifest
itself in several interesting ways in regards to city planning. One
of the most apparent is the idea that in order to be competitive and
economically resilient, a city should strive on attracting a "creative class" of young professionals, something which recent
research shows mightnotactuallywork, as opposed to trying to develop
one by increasing the quality of education, public services, or low
income housing.

Another way is by
cities directly copying aspects of comprehensive plans from other
cities without optimization or the understanding of why they were
originally developed. A good example of this is the implementation of
form-based zoning codes aimed at promoting pedestrian friendliness
and mixed uses. This is often seen when cities do not provide a
reason or direction for their codes, and implement them over large
areas of land instead of applying them to specific neighborhoods.

A good example of
this is "new urbanist" suburbs which are composed of rowhouses on
a grid plan, but do not exist in a larger context. They must still be
accessed by car, and still have minimal connectivity to adjacent
roads.

One of the major
flaws of the urban renewal program in the 1950s and 1960s was that it
tried to apply standardized solutions to a variety of problems across
a variety of cities, itself an expression of design fixation. This
approach paid no attention to the peculiarities of the urban
environment.

Jane Jacobs
discussed several flaws with this approach, most notably, the fact
that the design of these developments run counter to the way the
street level is actually used by a city's inhabitants. She also noted
that the interactions that take place among the residents of a city
play a large part in keeping it safe, interesting, and economically
competitive. Most importantly, she noted that each city has its own
peculiarities which influence these interactions. The peculiarities
of one city are different than those of another, and thus a planning
solution to a particular problem may work in one city, but not in
another.

In order to make a
substantial effort at addressing the variety of urban problems that
face us, such as poverty, crime, and abandonment, the reasons for
them, demographic patters, investment and development rates, policing
strategies, and travel patterns, must be thoroughly examined and well
understood. In this way, each city is unique. A problem that is
fundamentally different in two locations cannot be solved with the
same solution.

This is what keeps
urban design interesting, and I dare say, what makes it fun.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

A large percentage of new housing units
constructed as part of downtown revitalization cater to a two
specific groups of people: older "empty nesters" who live alone
and do not want to drive, and young professionals, who are often
single and want to be near active and "trendy" neighborhoods. A
common element in both these groups is that they do not have
children, and thus neighborhoods designed to attract them do not
cater to the needs of children by providing amenities such as
schools, libraries, and playgrounds.

Because of this, it is likely that many
young professionals will move out of cities and back to suburbs
should they decide to start families. This will cause yet another
round of suburban sprawl and possibly a second wave of urban decay.

In order to lessen the effects of this
or prevent it altogether, urban space must be designed and purposed
in a way that is inclusive to the needs of current and future
residents of all age groups. In some cases, this will result in
tradeoffs where a city has to decide whether to allocate resources to
schools and public or affordable housing or amenities designed to
attract younger residents and tourists to cities.

Despite these tradeoffs, an inclusive
built environment has the potential to draw a previously unconsidered
demographic to cities, families that live in the suburbs simply
because these are the only areas that currently cater to their needs.
Making cities attractive for these groups will not only work to
reduce suburban sprawl but will also extend the economic and social
benefits of urban life to as many people as possible.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Whenever a mass shooting occurs, public
opinion focuses on one of three things: guns, video games, or mental
illness. Where and how we live, a prominent aspect of our culture, is
rarely discussed in relation to increasing violent tendencies.

Most mass shootings have occurred in
suburbs or small towns, not in cities. This includes the Virginia
Tech shooting, Columbine High School, and most recently, Newtown, CT.
A recent study by the Brookings Institute showed that as the crime
rate for inner cities is decreasing, the crime rate for suburban
areas is increasing.

Likewise, poverty is shifting from the
inner cities to the suburbs. This is due to both the special severity
of the financial crisis in account of the pervasiveness of mortgages,
and the fact that suburban living is highly decentralized and
infrastructure intensive, and thus has higher living costs.

The ways suburbs are planned and built
runs contrary to the ways the built environment is intended to work
for people. Jane Jacobs notes how shared and varied land uses promote
use of outdoor space and socialization with other users of that
space. This goes for adults as well as children, as she notes that
when children play on sidewalks or in alleys they are indirectly
protected by public surveillance of the streets.

This is a process that is not allowed
to occur in suburbs chiefly because land is segregated by use. There
is no incentive for those who live in residential neighborhoods to
survey their streets because nothing of interest is taking place on
them. Likewise, residents of suburbs are also less likely to use
sidewalks on their streets because of the lack of destinations
reachable on foot and the fact that fences have been erected around
yards, prohibiting residents from interacting with each other via
streets.

In addition to this, a growing amount
of research is being done on the mental health effects of pollution
and traffic congestion. An article in the Wall Street Journal notes
that research has found possible links between air pollution and
Altzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Autism, as well as increased levels of
stress. Traffic congestion has also been linked to increases in
stress.

This stress, combined with the few
opportunities for socialization provided by suburban life and the
easy access to weapons in American society no doubt contribute to our
high rates of gun violence and mass shootings. If mass shootings are
a problem we wish to address responsibly and permanently, we need to
look at the way we live and how it shapes us.